Arnaldo Otegi and Rafa Díez sentenced to 10 years in Bateragune trial

The National Court on Friday sentenced former Batasuna spokesman Arnaldo Otegi and the ex-Secretar- General of Basque nationalist trade union LAB to ten years in prison on charges of belonging to ETA and for trying to reform an outlawed political group.

In the conclusion of the Bateragune court case, of which the judge's final ruling was reached on Friday morning, Miren Zabaleta, Arkaitz Rodríguez and Sonia Jacinto were also sentenced to serve prison sentences of 8 years each.

The same judge cleared three of the accused, Txelui Moreno, Amaia Esnal and Mañel Serra, for whom the Prosecuting Attorney had previously dropped all charges during the trial.

Rafa Díez will enter prison on Monday when he will be called to the National High Court in order to hear his sentence. The other convicted members of the Defence have been in prison since their arrest in October 2009.

The court found all five convicted members of the Defence guilty of belonging to a select group within the ranks of the nationalist left; that "in full collusion and following orders received from ETA, of which they formed a part, they were designing a strategy in order to build up nationalist forces."

The sentence ruled that in 2008 ETA ordered Otegi and Díez to create a body that would act as its political wing. Although the court ruled that the Prosecutor had not proven beyond doubt that the resulting body was Bateragune, it accepted as proven that ETA sent orders to the members of that group "to plan and manage a new strategy for combining nationalist forces."

Otegi and the four other convicted members were found to have "received direct orders from ETA". The court based its conclusion on evidence of meetings held by the accused at the LAB headquarters, trips made to France in order to meet with people with links to ETA and documentation in which the armed group are seen to be passing on orders of a political nature.